


(Nothing) Like In Movies

by temporalDecay



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fics [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a short, pale moment between Karkat and Gamzee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Nothing) Like In Movies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stalkerkun @ tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stalkerkun+%40+tumblr).



“Now,” Karkat says, letting out a loud, tired sigh. “You nooksucking bastard, what the fuck did you do to yourself this time?” 

Gamzee bares his teeth at him, huddling and somehow making himself look even smaller than he already is. Swollen, angry purple lines decorate the length of his arms and there are bruises around his throat, ghosts of fingers or, Karkat feels his throat contract unpleasantly, rope burns. 

“Ain’t do nothing, motherfucker,” Gamzee hisses, standing at the edge of the pile and kicking it a little. 

It honks, and Karkat finds himself smiling wryly, for how reassuring the damn sound has become. He hears it, sometimes, walking along the corridors or exploring the depths of the meteor, and it puts some feral fear to rest. It’s become one of Gamzee’s signs of continued existence and Karkat doesn’t know what it means, the change in meaning, only that he’s not sure he could survive without the stupid sound around anymore. He’s grown to depend on the strangest things, these days, the smallest things that he would have scoffed at once. 

“You always _do_ something, you homicidal, pan-rotten fucker.” The words spill off Karkat’s mouth without a second thought, even as he shifts around to sit on his knees. “That’s the fucking point, now come here.” 

Gamzee bares his teeth again, but goes limp when Karkat’s arms wrap around him and pull him into his body. It’s the most fucking miraculous shit he’s ever felt, he thinks, the way just a touch from Karkat can put the constant boiling in his blood to rest. He squirms a little, finding his place in the larger troll’s lap, face pressed into his shirt. He’s smearing paint on it, and later, when they’re done, Karkat will get pissed about it, in the same way he gets pissed about everything that he realizes means the world for him. Gamzee doesn’t try to piss off Karkat any, he honest to fucking Messiahs doesn’t, it just sort of happens, what with the way things have arranged themselves. Gamzee lets them fall where they may, because that’s where the true miracles hide, twisted up into little knots of capricious serendipity that make no sense to anyone. The secret, Gamzee knows with the same certainty he knows he’s pale for Karkat, is to not try to make sense of shit at all. 

“Ain’t done nothing,” Gamzee insists, as Karkat buries his nose into his hair and sighs. 

“Uh huh,” Karkat smiles, curling around Gamzee as he goes limp and docile, and allows himself to relax as well. 

He’s aware he’s become somewhat clingy, in the last few perigees, holding onto Gamzee’s body almost frantically, every time the deranged clown emerges from the vents. But the truth is that he’s a little scared of the looming threat of growth spurs and the fact that sooner rather than later, he won’t be able to sit the highblood in his lap like this. Quelling that bottomless thirst for blood is a daunting task, but not one Karkat feels weighted by in the slightest. It makes him damn near sick with pity, sometimes, watching Gamzee’s face cloud and darken before he reaches out and soothes it back into what passes off as Gamzee’s sanity these days. He’s small and dirty and manic most of the time, and Karkat doesn’t understand how anyone could resist the urge to try and set him straight. 

“Fell down a vent,” Gamzee mumbles into the all forgiving depths of Karkat’s shirt. 

Karkat doesn’t doubt he did, but he knows for a fact that’s not why he’s such a mess. It’s always like this, though. Gamzee says one thing and means something else entirely, and Karkat reads between the lines and doesn’t point out he does. In movies, Karkat thinks almost feverishly, it’s never like this. In movies, moirails are star crossed lovers, fated to find each other no matter what, and who confide in each other every thought and feeling until the very idea of keeping a secret from one another makes them ill. In fact, two of Karkat’s favorite pale romcoms involve one half of the pairing ineffectually trying to hide something from the other, and all the shenanigans that naturally follow from that. No one really important ever dies in movies – the movies Karkat liked anyway, which were terrible and sappy and no one ever got hurt unless it was funny – and it doesn’t matter if things get awkward or painful, because everyone was always almost contractually guaranteed to get a happy ending. 

But life, Karkat has learned, is nothing at all like a movie. Life in the meteor is full of things no one talks about and constantly has to sidestep and pretend to ignore. And sometimes they are all so scared and tired and sick of waiting the only possible result was a loud fight where many things they don’t really mean are said and regretted for days afterwards. Life is much more painful than a movie, because life doesn’t have happy endings. Life ends when you die, and it’s not happy or sad or tragic, it’s just a fact. Karkat prefers life to movies, these days, despite it all, because movies don’t have psychotic highblood clowns that crawl through vents and fit in his lap almost as if they had been hatched to sit there. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” Karkat runs his hands down Gamzee’s back, smiling despite his worry as a soft purring noise echoes from the depths of Gamzee’s chest. 

“Nah, best friend,” Gamzee smiles, absently patting his shoulder. “A brother up and all be made of motherfucking sturdier stuff.” 

“Gamzee.” 

There is something strangled and asphyxiating in Karkat’s voice, somewhere between a plea and resignation. Gamzee shifts enough to press cold lips against his cheek. Then he presses his lips to the other cheek, to Karkat’s forehead, to the corner of his lips, his chin. He rains tiny, soothing kisses all over Karkat’s face, because he’s not the pacifier in their relationship, but that sure as fuck doesn’t mean Gamzee doesn’t want to wrap Karkat in wool and color and make everything stop hurting. 

“Shoosh, best friend,” he croons, smiling lazily as Karkat grabs onto his hand and presses his fingers to his lips, one by one, like the most sacred of rituals. “Ain’t going anywhere without you.” 

“Pale for you,” Karkat whispers almost desperately, burying his face into Gamzee’s mane and holding onto him like a lifeline. 

“Forever pale for you, my most pitiful, palest of brothers,” Gamzee replies, “Messiahs’ given truth, a motherfucker will kneel over and die, before he stops being pale for you.” 

“Don’t say shit like that,” Karkat mutters, a little wetly, nuzzling almost forcefully into the tangled snare of hair. “For two fucking seconds, stop thinking about death and dying and _fuck_.” 

Gamzee honks quietly, almost languidly, and melts into a puddle in Karkat’s lap. Karkat is hard pressed to care. It’s nothing like in the movies, because it’s raw and consuming and _real_. And no matter what happens, with that uncertainty always curling around them both, this is the one comfort Karkat will never let anyone take away from him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if I reached the required level of tooth-rotting paleness required, but I sure damn tried! Hope you enjoy, and sorry for the hideous delay.


End file.
